The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1887-11-10

why. Inoy nave Deen 1eafIully Sts Obe1
of the Interrogation point. There are 20
many things they can not get expla.ned
They can not understand the Trinity, or
how God can be sovereign and yet man
free agent. Neither can l.
They say: ~ don't understand why a
good God should have let sin come into the
world" Neither do /. You say: "Why
was that child started in life with such
disadvantages, while others have all
physical and mental equipmentW I can
not tell. They go outIof church on Easter
morning and say: ''That doctrine of the
resurrection COMPOUNDED me-" So it is to
me a mystery beyond unravelment.
understand all the processes by which
men get into the dark. l know them all.
have travelled with burning feet that
blistered way.
The first word that children learn to ut
ter is generally papa or mamma. think
the first word / ever uttered was ''Why?"
know what it is to have Il hundred mid
nights pour their darkness into one hour.
Such men are not to be scoffed at,
but helped. Turn your back upon
a drowning man, when you have the
rope with which to pull him ashore, and
let that woman in the third story of a
a ladder with which to help her out and
help her down, rather than turn your
back scoffingly ON skeptic whose soul is
in more peril than the bodies of those
other endangered ones possibly can be.
Oh. skeptcism is dark land. There are
men in this house who would give a thou
sand worlds if they possessed them, to get
back to the placid faith of their fathers
nd nd i, MI 70 ball
them, and we may help them; never
through their heads, but always through
their hearts. These skeptics, when
| brought to Jesus, will be nightly affected,
| far more so thanthos who never exam
ined the evidences of Christianity.
! Again, there is field of usefulness, but
little touched, occupied by those who are
astray in their habits. All northern Ma
tions, like those of North America, and
England, and Scotland, that is, in the
colder climates, are devastated by alco.
holism. They take the fire to keep up the
warmth. In southern countries, like
Arabia and Spain, the blood is so they are
not tempted to fiery liquids.
| The Great Roman armies never drank
any thing stronger than water tinged
with vinegar, but under our northern cli-
1
is most mighty, and millions succumb.
! When a mans habits go wrong the
| church drops him, the social circle drops
him, good influences drop him, we all drop
him. OF all the men who get off the track
but few ever get on again. Near my sum-
mer residence there is q life-saving sta
tion on the beach. There are all the ropes
and rockets, the boats, the machinery, for
| off oil;
before last I saw there fifteen or twenty
men who were breakfasting after having
just escaped with their lives and nothing
more. Up and down our coasts are built
these useful structures, and the mariners
know it, and they feel that if they
are driven into the breakers there
will be apt from shore to come a
rescue. The churches of God ought to
be SO many life-saving stations, not. SO
much to help those who are in smooth
waters, but those who have been ship
wrecked. Come, let US run out the life
boatsl And who will man them? We do
not preach enough to such men; we have
not enough faith in their release. Alas, il
when they come to hear us, we are labori-
ousiy trying to show the difference be-
tween Sublapsarianism and Supraiapsar-
iansm, while they have a thousand vipers
of remorse and despair coiling around and
biting their immortal spirits. The church
is not chiefly for goodish sort of men whose
proclivities are all right, and Who
could get to Heaven PRAYING
and singing in their own
homes. 1t is on the beach to help the
drowning. Those bad cases are the cases
that God likes to take hold of. He can
save big sinner as well as small sinner
and when man calls earnestly to God
for help he will go out to deliver such a
one. Ii it were necessary God would
come down from the sky, followed by all
the artillery of Heaven and a million
angels with drawn swords. Get one hum
dred such redeemed men in each of you1
churches and nothing could stand before
them, for such men are generally warm .
hearted and enthusiastic. No formal
prayer then. No heartless singing then.
No cold conventions isms then.
Furthermore, the destitute children of
the street offer a field of work compare.
lively unoccupied. The uncared- for chill.
dren are in the majority in Brooklyn and
most OF our cities. When they grow up, il
unreformed, they will outvote your chill.
dren, and they will govern your children.
The whisky ring will hatch out other
whisky rings, and grog-shops will kill
with their horrid stencil public sobriety,
unless the Church of God rises up with
outstretched arms and enfolds this
dying population in her bosom. Public
schools can not do it. Art galleries can not
do it. Blackwell's Island can not do it,
Almshouses can not do it. New York
Tombs and Rayman Street Jail can not dc
it. Sing Sing can not do it. Church Of
God, wake up to your magnificent mis-.
sion! You can do it. Get somewhere.
somehow to work.
At Sharon Springs, nineteen years
ago, walking in the park, asked God if he
had any particular work for ms to do to
make it plain, and would do it. He re-
vealed to me the style of church we were
to have, and he revealed to me the archi.
lecture, and he revealed to me the style OF
worship, and he revealed to me my work
and, as far as in my Ignorance and
weakness l have seen the right way,
have tried to walk in it. We decided that
we wanted soul-saving church, and it has
been an almost constant outpouring oil
the Holy Ghost. Ye powers of darkness, We
devils in hell, we mean to snatch from
your dominions other multitudes, il God
A.nN L.